Decision 'by Thursday' on Zuma's possible return to Estcourt prison

The department of correctional services [DCS] is set to make its decision before next Thursday on the incarceration of former president Jacob Zuma.

The DCS said it had received representations from relevant parties on the matter.

“The next phase is for the national commissioner, Makgothi Thobakgale, to consider all material received, the judgment of the Supreme Court of Appeal [SCA] and prescripts within the space of corrections,” said spokesperson Singabakho Nxumalo.

In November last year, the SCA dismissed Zuma’s appeal regarding his medical parole and said he must return to prison in Estcourt, KwaZulu-Natal.

“Mr Zuma, in law, has not finished serving his sentence. He must return to the Estcourt Correctional Centre to do so,” the SCA said in its unanimous judgment.

Nxumalo said Thobakgale's decision will be communicated publicly.

Thobakgale initially wrote to “interested parties” asking them for representations on how to deal with the vexed question of Zuma’s parole. 

This was after the Constitutional Court last month dismissed an application by Zuma for leave to appeal the SCA ruling, saying an appeal had “no reasonable prospects of success”. 

Zuma served less than two months of the 15-month sentence handed to him by the Constitutional Court in 2021 for contempt of court after he failed to obey its order to abide by the lawful summons of the state capture inquiry.

In September 2021, Zuma was released on medical parole by former correctional services commissioner Arthur Fraser.   

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